Dial up and a BBS
Nov. 9th, 2020 10:34 amI actually dialled up to a BBS yesterday! For the first time in decades! From a Mac.
Here is how I did it:
1. Christmas 1994, I was given a very awesome present of a 14.4k modem.
2. I bought a serial to USB connector, as I no longer have serial ports on my computers. Installed drivers - The one from Prolific turned out to be the one that worked for me: https://plugable.com/drivers/prolific
3. Other > System Information > USB showed me USB-Serial Controller was present.
4. ls /dev/cu.* showed me /dev/cu.Plser
5. Then I downloaded ZTerm (the OSX Universal Binary one, as I was using a Mac) and changed the settings for my modem - selecting the port (/dev/cu.Plser) and the baud rate (19200).
6. I used the cable that goes from my landline phone into the phone socket to use in the modem.
7. I put in the phone number of the BBS that I found - Nostromo BBS.
8. Then I actually connected to it! I heard the sounds of a modem for the first time in years!
There is apparently another BBS in the UK that exists and runs on an Amiga that I want to try, but it seems to only be available at night, so I might try that one sometime.
Here is how I did it:
1. Christmas 1994, I was given a very awesome present of a 14.4k modem.
2. I bought a serial to USB connector, as I no longer have serial ports on my computers. Installed drivers - The one from Prolific turned out to be the one that worked for me: https://plugable.com/drivers/prolific
3. Other > System Information > USB showed me USB-Serial Controller was present.
4. ls /dev/cu.* showed me /dev/cu.Plser
5. Then I downloaded ZTerm (the OSX Universal Binary one, as I was using a Mac) and changed the settings for my modem - selecting the port (/dev/cu.Plser) and the baud rate (19200).
6. I used the cable that goes from my landline phone into the phone socket to use in the modem.
7. I put in the phone number of the BBS that I found - Nostromo BBS.
8. Then I actually connected to it! I heard the sounds of a modem for the first time in years!
There is apparently another BBS in the UK that exists and runs on an Amiga that I want to try, but it seems to only be available at night, so I might try that one sometime.
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